The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things (97 page)

80
But see n. 50 of that section for an important qualification.

81
A further interesting point of comparison between Hegel and Nietzsche, reflected in Nietzsche’s doctrine of the death of God, is that they both believe that concepts have histories: see
Gay Science
, §357.

82
One symptom of this is that Nietzsche would never dream of declaring the rational actual or the actual rational: see e.g.
Gay Science
, §109, and
Will
, §§12(B), 436, 480, and 488.

83
See esp.
Ch. 21
, §§3 and 4.

84
For examples of the interest in identity shown by our protagonists from Part Two, see Frege (
1980
), §§62ff.; Frege (
1997c
), pp. 151–152/pp. 25–26 in the original German; Wittgenstein (
1961
), 5.53ff.; Wittgenstein (
1967a
), Pt I, §§215 and 216; Carnap (
1935
), p. 66; Quine (
1960
), §24; Quine (
1961d
); Lewis (
1983d
); Lewis (
1983e
); and Dummett (
1981a
),
Ch. 16
. (In the case of Wittgenstein, both early and late, the interest is characteristically idiosyncratic.)

85
Among the reasons for this are the fact that it would be impossible to recast the standard logic of numerical identity in terms of difference without the use of negation. (I shall have more to say about this in §4 of the next chapter.) Nietzsche, incidentally, would not so much take issue with such logic as take issue with the concept of numerical identity itself: see e.g.
Gay Science
, §111, and
Will
, §520. This is another example, along with his atheism, of his taking issue with a whole
way
of making sense of things. And even then he would take issue with it only in the sense of querying its fundamentality. He would not deny the usefulness of that way of making sense of things, nay its indispensability, for practical purposes: see ibid., and cf.
Beyond Good and Evil
, §4.

86
Cf.
Human
, II.ii.67, and
Will
, §§581 and 853.

87
Which incidentally brings this section full circle. For it is also profoundly Spinozist (Spinoza (
2002c
), Pt I, Def. 6 and Expl.).

88
Sometimes it is called the idea of eternal recurrence. Nietzsche himself uses two words – ‘
Wiederkehr
’ and ‘
Wiederkunft
’ – though not, it seems, very systematically. (Occasionally, he uses ‘
Wiederholung
’ as well. This is normally translated as ‘repetition’.) Here I am indebted to Stambaugh (
1972
), pp. 29–31.

89
Bernard Reginster registers this second dispute by distinguishing between a ‘theoretical’ interpretation and a ‘practical’ interpretation: see Reginster (
2006
),
Ch. 5
, §1.

90
According to Simplicius, the Pythagoreans accepted this idea: see Barnes (
1987
), p. 88. Empedocles also accepted a version of it: see ibid., pp. 166–167.

91
It is in any case worth recalling the caveat in n. 2. The passages in question occur in Nietzsche’s unpublished notes. As for the refutation of these arguments, see e.g. Schacht (
1983
), pp. 263ff.

92
For one of countless instances of this interpretation, see Williams (
2006g
), pp. 318ff.

93
Hard to see, not impossible to see. An advocate of this interpretation might say that Zarathustra’s reason for admonishing the dwarf and the animals is that they treat the idea, as he himself puts it to the dwarf, ‘too lightly’.

94
We might wonder about the force of Williams’ rhetorical question. If willing one recurrence could cost you anything, then
could not
willing all those further recurrences cost you very much more? But we must not forget that what is at issue here is the cost of willing the recurrences, not the cost of enduring them. In order to will even one recurrence you would already have to think in as much vivid detail as possible of all the horror, all the affliction, and all the misery: it would already cost you as much as that. As far as enduring the recurrences is concerned, its costs are beside the point. Affirming the world, as we saw in §6, is not a matter of balancing costs against benefits at all.

95
This is not so much because I fail to see this idea in Nietzsche as because I fail to see
him
in
it
. If it can be seen there, this is not, I think, because he has put it there. See again my comments about Deleuze in n. 2. (You may be suspicious of the distinction between what can be seen in an author and what he or she has put there. We shall return to this kind of suspicion, which is associated especially with Derrida, in
Ch. 20
, §3.)

96
It is an account that I have tried to defend elsewhere: see Moore (
2006a
). Some of the present section is derived from this essay. I am grateful to the editor of
Mind
for permission to make use of the relevant material. For something very similar, see the superb discussion in Lloyd (
1993
), pp. 107–122.

97
This section is also incidentally relevant to the issue of whether it is possible to see something in a writer that he or she has not put there: see n. 95 above.

98
I do not mean to suggest that Deleuze does not likewise see Nietzsche as committed to these two ideas: see e.g. Deleuze (
2006a
),
Ch. 2
, §15.

99
There are two interesting precursors of this conception in earlier chapters. In
Ch. 3
, §3, we saw Leibniz defend the view that the world is a world of monads, each affording its own different perspective on the whole. And in
Ch. 9
, §8, we saw Wittgenstein defend the idea that viewing the world first one way and then another can, without altering the facts, make it become a different world. The latter is especially pertinent to how I am about to develop the conception. (Wittgenstein, it should be added, was writing after Nietzsche. Was Nietzsche an influence on Wittgenstein? There is no reason to think so, though it is worth noting that Schopenhauer was a great influence on both: see
Ch. 9
, n. 65, and see e.g.
Untimely Meditations
, III.)

100
As it is on Deleuze’s interpretation: see Deleuze (
2006a
),
Ch. 15
passim. (In fact no reasonable interpretation could gainsay this point.)

101
This is marvellously captured in Kundera (
1984
), Pt One, §§1 and 2.

102
The word ‘objective’ here is intended to signal the first of the two kinds of meaning distinguished in §6.

103
Cf. Nehamas (
1985
), pp. 163–164. (But note that Nehamas adopts the popular first interpretation of Nietzsche’s doctrine which I have rejected.)

104
See n. 70: here again I intend my own conception of metaphysics.

105
Its own supersession; not its own denial; still less its own refutation. See §§5 and 6: Nietzsche’s vision can legitimately be superseded even if it is true.

106
This makes Nietzsche the second of my protagonists after Carnap – historically, the first – to give the triad of answers that I myself would give. (See
Ch. 11
, n. 49.)

Chapter 16 Bergson Metaphysics as Pure Creativity

1. Introduction

Many of our protagonists have distinguished, if only implicitly, between two or more kinds of sense-making, in a way that has critically shaped their contribution to the saga.
¹
Thus we have witnessed:

• Spinoza’s distinction between his three kinds of knowledge

• Kant’s broad distinction between what I called ‘thick’ sense-making and ‘thin’ sense-making

• Hegel’s distinction between operations of understanding and operations of reason

• the early Wittgenstein’s distinction between propositional sense-making and non-propositional sense-making

• the two variations on that theme in the later Wittgenstein and Dummett

and

• Carnap’s distinction between the making of judgments within a linguistic framework and the adoption of the framework.

In each case there were important questions about where metaphysics stood in relation to the distinction, either on the protagonist’s own conception of metaphysics or on mine, or on both. (See respectively
Ch. 2
, §6;
Ch. 5
, §§9 and 10;
Ch. 7
, §§7 and 9;
Ch. 10
, §3;
Ch. 14
, §4; and
Ch. 11
, §5.)

Nowhere in the history of metaphysics, however, has the drawing of a distinction between different kinds of sense-making been more pronounced, or more relentlessly pursued, or more directly relevant to our narrative, than in Bergson. Henri Bergson (1859–1941) distinguished sharply between ‘analysis’ and ‘intuition’. And he insisted that metaphysics
consists of the latter. It remains to be seen how far his conception of metaphysics coincided with mine. But even if it did not coincide at all, the importance of his distinction to his overall vision and its ready application to the very idea of sense-making at the highest level of generality ensure that the distinction cannot fail to have a significant bearing on our own enquiry.

2. Analysis (or Intelligence) versus Intuition

Here is how Bergson introduces the distinction:

If we compare the various ways of defining metaphysics and of conceiving the absolute, we shall find, despite apparent discrepancies, that philosophers agree in making a deep distinction between two ways of knowing a thing. The first [sc. analysis] implies going all around it, the second [sc. intuition] entering into it. The first depends on the viewpoint chosen and the symbols employed, while the second is taken from no viewpoint and rests on no symbol. Of the first kind of knowledge we shall say that it stops at the
relative
; of the second that, wherever possible, it attains the
absolute
. (‘Metaphysics’, p. 159, emphasis in original
²
)

Note that Bergson claims no novelty for his distinction. On the contrary, he claims it to have been generally recognized. This, it must be said, is wild. There are interesting analogues of this distinction elsewhere in the history of philosophy,
³
but there is nothing else quite like it. In our own enquiry we have seen much that would actually distance other philosophers from it, most notably and most recently in §3 of the previous chapter, where we saw Nietzsche argue strenuously for the impossibility of non-perspectival sense-making. (It is also worth noting that the most compelling subsequent attempts to defend the possibility of non-perspectival sense-making are quite unlike Bergson’s, to the extent that they disentangle the two components in Bergson’s way of drawing his distinction and envisage knowledge which, though not from any viewpoint, does make use of symbols.
⁴
) But let us put
to one side the question of how far Bergson has been anticipated or followed by others. Let us focus on what he himself proffers.

First, a point of taxonomy. Bergson not only contrasts ‘analysis’ with intuition. He also contrasts ‘intelligence’, or ‘intellect’, with intuition (e.g.
Creative Evolution
,
Ch. 3
, passim). Intelligence is not the same as analysis. Nevertheless, this is in effect the same distinction. For intelligence is the faculty corresponding to analysis, or the faculty whose operation is analysis, while the word ‘intuition’ stands ambiguously both for the faculty and for its operation (cf. ‘Introduction II’, pp. 30ff.).

Very well, what are the lineaments of these two kinds of sense-making?

Analysis is characteristic of the natural sciences. It is normally pursued for some practical purpose, and it is often pursued only as far as is necessary for the purpose in question (see e.g.
Creative Evolution
, p. 358). It involves
representations
of the things of which sense is being made. It also therefore involves comparisons of those things with other things that can be represented in relevantly similar ways. And it typically proceeds by drawing on what is already known about these other things. Its representations in turn involve symbols, and these symbols always admit of alternatives, alternatives that express different concepts or highlight different features of the things being represented. This is why Bergson maintains that analysis only ever results in knowledge that is perspectival and relative. It further means that both analysis itself and the knowledge in which it results are subject to never-ending refinement and supplement. For it is always possible to analyze things more subtly, or in more detail, or indeed in completely different terms, that is to say from some completely different point of view. (See ‘Intuition’, esp. pp. 126ff., and ‘Metaphysics’, esp. pp. 159–162.)
⁵